EHR Offers Several Attractive Features to Health Care Providers

Feb 20
11:37

2011

Winslow Sandy

Winslow Sandy

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EHR, or Electronic Health Record, software is a way for health care providers to effectively run a practice. It can be used for scheduling appointment...

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EHR,EHR Offers Several Attractive Features to Health Care Providers Articles or Electronic Health Record, software is a way for health care providers to effectively run a practice. It can be used for scheduling appointments, as well as updating patient charts. This electronic tool makes billing a much more streamlined process, and it can even send prescriptions to be filled to a pharmacy.

Paper records for patient records are bulky and inefficient. They take up valuable office space, which adds to the doctor's overhead. Paper files make it challenging when another doctor is being consulted for a patient; either the referring physician must compile a report or the file must be copied and sent to the other doctor.

When a doctor's office uses EHR technology, collaborating with other physicians is a much quicker and easier experience. Authorized users can log into the system to review a patient's complete medical history easily. The doctor can then make a note on the chart and electronically sign it.

This type of software also allows users to send e-mail messages, including orders for nursing staff, phone messages and follow-ups. Once it has been set up in an office, there is no more need for putting Post-it notes on a file when a referral needs to be made or for any other purpose. The request can be conveyed electronically to the appropriate office staff member.

Messages for specific patient files can be associated with their charts easily using a dedicated EHR software program. The doctor can put notes in the file for laboratory test results or about billing issues, if desired.

Part of a physician's job is to prescribe medications as appropriate to his or her patient's needs. An Electronic Health Record program can make doing so an easier and much more secure process. The physician can convey the request to the pharmacy electronically without having to pull the patient's file and calling in the prescription by phone.

This type of software also allows a pharmacy to convey refill requests to the doctor's office electronically. The doctor can then authorize the pharmacy to provide the medication in the same manner, without having to pick up the phone and speak to the pharmacist or his or her assistant.

Another helpful feature available with this software is that it can provide the user with an interactive map indicating the closest pharmacies to either the office location or the patient's home. That way, the prescription request can be sent to the location that is most convenient for the patient.

Dedicated software helps with scheduling appointments and keeping the practice running smoothly. It can be used to book appointments for multiple health care providers using color-coded entries. The Electronic Health Record software makes it easy to see a week at a glance and to keep track of commitments for that time. Setting aside a certain amount of time for an appointment is a simple matter of dragging the mouse to book up to 90 minutes at a stretch.

Billing is another necessary activity of running a practice, and the software makes it much easier and more efficient to do so. It can be integrated with the billing service or billing software that the office is currently using. The advantage to using the software for forwarding billing information to a billing service is that the information can be relayed electronically, eliminating the need for paper.

EHR software has the features needed to help health care providers run their practice more efficiently. It can help save time in normal office procedures and allows the user to keep detailed patient records that can be accessed by other providers as necessary.